


Clocks

by orphan_account



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Chameleon Arch, M/M, Post Episode: s04e17-e18 The End of Time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-08 19:24:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His name is Harold Saxon, and he thinks he's just some ordinary guy living a normal life all by himself... until his life turns around when he meets a man with two hearts who calls himself a Time Lord. Harold thinks the Doctor's a little crazy... and yet he can't help but find something rather charming about traveling around with him in a police phone booth. Post-EoT, no Eleventh regeneration.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Run

* * *

CLOCKS

* * *

"Doctor? You have a visitor."

His eyes dart up from the stack of papers on his desk, and he fires the woman a brief smile. "Yes? Who is it?"

The woman stares back at him, gaze unfaltering. (She really almost feels sorry for him, sometimes. It's like he's there, but he isn't—like he'd much rather be somewhere else but here. From the moment he'd stepped inside the offices, she knew there was something off about him, but she never could place it.) "Says his name is the Doctor, doctor." She grins, a tad. "Seems you're not the only doctor in the house, now."

He blinks, surprise written quite clearly on his face. "Well, then. Bring him in, I suppose."

She nods, and then opens up the door to his daintily-sized office, speaking with the man outside. From past her frame, he can see that this mysterious Doctor visitor is wearing a tacky brown duster, and a pinstripe suit with converse sneakers. (Doesn't he know? Trainers do  _not_  go with pinstripes.)

The door opens again, and this Doctor man steps in. Almost instantly, something in the man's face morphs to an expression of... something else, but he can't place it.

"Hello," he says nervously, shooting the Doctor another smile. "What can I do for you today,  _Doctor_?"

The Doctor sits down cautiously, eyeing his nametag.  _Harold Saxon_ , it reads, but the name means nothing in this day and age. This is years before that time. He glances back up at  _'Dr Saxon_ ', suspicion and fascination creeping into his hearts. "I've... heard you are an expert in prosthetics, am I right?"

Harold's face brightens. "You've heard right, Doctor," he responds, then quickly surveys the man again.  _He doesn't seem to have any missing limbs. Perhaps it's a loved one or family member?_

(If only he knew about the hand.)

"Erm, yes. Yes," the Doctor replies, casting a sidelong glance to the wall, which is more comforting to look at than Dr Saxon's personage. "Well..."

Harold sits forward in his seat, kneading his fingers together onto the desk. "Although, I might have you know, we'll need your medical records to get anything done, which includes me knowing your actual name..."

The Doctor blinks, and then grins. "Right. It's Smith. John Smith." He reaches into his coat to pull out his psychic paper, and then quickly reminds himself that this is the Master he's speaking to, regardless of... whatever is going on right now. Psychic paper would never work on him (and, for that matter, neither would a perception filter).

"Well, then. So, what seems to be the problem, then, Mr  _Smith_?" His tone is distinctly mocking, yet playful; Harold knows there's no way  _'John Smith'_  is this guy's real name, but the fact that this Doctor person needs to hide his name so badly is fascinating to him. The Doctor opens his mouth to respond when he suddenly stops, interrupted by the sudden sound of tapping. His eyes instantly dart to Harold's fingertips. Harold blanches. "Oh, I'm sorry," he apologizes quickly. "Nervous habit."

 _It's still there_ , the Doctor says to himself, alarmed.  _Why is it still there?_  "Oh, nah, it's alright." He suddenly stands, an awkward smile forming on his lips. "You know, actually, I think I've got another appointment to tend to..." his voice trails off.

Harold's brows rise, and then he rises up, as if remembering himself. "Oh, I'm sorry," he responds, smiling out of propriety. "Well, if you ever need anything, don't forget to give my office a ring, right?" He holds out his business card.

Pocketing it, the Doctor grins back, but it's all smile and no hearts. "Sure, sure. 'Course." A quick wave, and he's out the door, leaving Harold sitting there, puzzled.

_I wonder what he was here for? Who is this 'Doctor' man...?_

* * *

1\. Run

* * *

It's late evening by the time Harold gets home from work. Slamming his car door shut, he starts strolling out from his driveway, towards his front door. He places his hand on the knob, and pauses.

Something's watching him.

He stops, and turns about, giving the area a good look. But between the dim light offered by the moon and the flickering street lamppost, he can hardly see past a few feet, let alone behind the bushes and shrubs lining his property.

_I must just be imagining things. Can hardly think anyways, not with that noise in my head..._

Harold shakes his head quickly, dismissing the thought. (His coworkers already thought he was mad before, when he had started blabbering about the drumming inside of his own mind; he doesn't need to start imagining things  _outside_  of his mind, either.) He can't help but rush inside his house, though, and make sure that the door is locked.

Routinely, he heads into the bathroom, washes his face, changes his clothes, looks in the mirror again. Brown hair, brown eyes, late thirties, maybe early forties. Same face as always, right?

_Then why does it feel so wrong?_

He sighs, and then, running his hand through his hair, settles onto the couch, turning on the television. It flickers, the screen getting a muddled grey haze, and then blacks out.

Puzzled, he gets up and steps over to the set, and gives it a good smack. "What's wrong with you?" he mutters, frustrated, as he watches the static. "Work!" He exclaims, and hits it one last time.

The screen is abruptly awash with colors. Harold staggers back, covering his eyes as the ceiling lightbulb suddenly fizzes out, and the room becomes illuminated by the light projected from the television. His eyes widen as his heart races in his chest. Something is starting to form within the screen. A... a head... and... is that a mouth...?

Yes. It's a mouth. A giant gaping mouth lined with rows of teeth, and just as Harold thinks this day can't get any worse, the television begins rattling and shaking, as if something inside of it is squirming, struggling to bust out.

He's not going to sit here and wait to see what happens. Harold bursts to his feet, grabs his coat, and scrambles out of his house, about to start screaming his head off when he runs straight into—

"Oof!" The Doctor stumbles back, shocked at first, and then he's focused again. "Mast—Harold! What's—"

Harold blinks, shocked, and then rapidly regains himself. "Docto—Mr Smith... There's... there's, this, this thing—this thing, inside of my telly. You wouldn't believe." He inhales to speak again, but the Doctor steps past him, entering the house cautiously. He reaches into his jacket, and procures a curious metal object, like a wand. Harold raises a brow, following him briskly into the family room, where the television set sits ... lifeless. No longer moving. Simply off.

The Doctor simply steps over to the television as Harold quickly starts to justify himself. "Hold on, it's not what it looks like. I'm not mad, honest. The television really  _was_  shaking all over. It was like it was—it was possessed, or something. I... oh, bother. You don't believe me, do you?"

Harold watches as the Doctor, unresponsive, merely holds up his wand-like thing and presses down on it. It makes a strange sort of noise and lights up blue as he moves the wand across the back of his television set, removing the back cover. Puzzled, Harold leans over and observes, while the Doctor starts fiddling about with the infrastructure of his television.

"Are... you sure you know what you're doing?" Harold says carefully.

The Doctor pauses to shoot him an incredulous glare. "' _Course_  I know what I'm doing!" he responds, and then backs off from the television, looking quite pleased with himself. A little smile forms on his face. "And I've got some advice for you."

"What is it?"

The Doctor's grin widens as the television set suddenly roars to life. A pair of jaws rip out of the screen, writhing its way out of the machine. Harold's eyes are like golfballs as the Doctor grabs his arm.

" _Run_ ," he says, and they do.


	2. The TARDIS

"Where are we going?!" Harold exclaims, exasperated, as they dash out of the house onto the street. The surrounding lampposts flash out occasionally, providing brief milliseconds of deep, unadulterated night.

"Off on an adventure!" the Doctor responds with a wide grin, sprinting across the road. The wind blows through his hair, sending it in a wild frenzy around his face. (His happiness makes him look like a child, compared to the frightened Harold, whose bewildered nature only seems to age him.)

Harold glances behind them every so few seconds, his eyes wide. "What is it that's chasing us, anyways?!"

"Oh—well…! That'd spoil the surprise, wouldn't it?" The Doctor skirts past a lamppost, which flickers into darkness behind them. Harold starts to sweat.

"Doctor, I mean it—what's going on?!" In his panic, the tip of his slipper catches on a crack, and he reels forward. His forehead careens to crash into the ground before the Doctor stops abruptly and catches him in his arms.

They stare awkwardly at each other.

"O-oh," Harold murmurs just as the Doctor's eyes flit upwards past his shoulder.

"Not good," the Doctor shouts. "Master—behind you!"

Harold wrenches himself from the Doctor's arms and reels around, ducking to the ground seconds before a pair of jaws lunge out from the shadows. The Doctor briskly flips on his magic wand and points it at the nearby lamppost, turning it on. Light floods the road, and a horrible screech emanates from whatever it was that was chasing them. It crumples onto the asphalt. Harold leans forward, giving it a look. His eyes widen.

A giant earthworm with a round mouth filled with shark-like incisors lies on the ground, shriveled up like a prune. The Doctor steps over and crouches by it, nudging with the end of his wand-thing.

"What... what on Earth is that?" Harold mumbles, exasperated. "Some kind of mutated worm?"

The Doctor's brows rise, his face twisting. "Nothing on  _Earth_ , Harold. Nothing on Earth."

Harold glances at the Doctor's face briefly, studying it. "You called me something earlier when this… thing, was about to get me—was… was it 'Master'?" His tone of voice is nothing short of incredulous.

"Well…" The Doctor glances away, almost in shame or embarrassment. "It's nothing, I… just a slip of the tongue, that's all."

"If you say so," Harold responds, frowning.  _It's the first time I've ever been called something like THAT_ , he thinks to himself.  _I've been called a lot of names since I got my job at the prosthetics', but 'Master' is a first-timer._

"Look, that's not important right now," the Doctor adds quickly. "What's important is that we figure out what this… this  _thing_  is, and stop the infestation before it spreads."

" _Infestation_?" Harold cries, indignant. "You can't be serious—there's  _more_  of these things?"

"Oh yes," the Doctor replies, grinning. "In fact, that's why I'm here." He stands up straight, facing Harold square. "So, yes, I lied to you. Maybe. Sort of." He bobs his head around, jogging around his thoughts. "I'm the Doctor," he says, and holds up his magic wand-like thing. "And this is my sonic screwdriver, not a magic wand like I'm sure you think it is, Harold. I'm a nine-hundred year-old Time Lord and I travel around in a time-travelling spaceship that looks like a police phone box called the TARDIS, which stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. Hello." He holds out his hand, a big smile on his face.

Harold Saxon stares at him, and then, after a moment's thought, takes his hand and shakes it. "Okay," he says.

The Doctor pauses. " _'Okay'_? Is… is that it? Really? No Twenty Questions? No fainting? No calling me mad? No asking me if I'm a nutjob? None of that?"

Harold laughs. "I've always been a bit off in the head anyways. Maybe all this was meant to happen, yeah?" He glances at the shriveled worm carcass. "…Besides, there's no denying something strange is going on… not with that  _thing_  there. So, I might as well, right?" He looks back at the Doctor, and smiles nervously.

The Doctor's puzzled face morphs into a genuine grin. "Oh, yes, you are  _fantastic_ , you are," he says and wraps his arms around him, hugging him close. Harold looks a little confused, but he doesn't move out of his grip quite yet.

"So… uhm… what are we going to do now?" Harold asks as he squirms out from the Doctor's wizened grip.

"Well. First things first," the Doctor says, looking back at Harold's house. "We should get back to your house for now. You'll want to get things to pack."

"Pack?" Harold repeats.

"Of course! Didn't I say we were going on an adventure?" He grabs Harold's arm again and sprints back to the front door, still left ajar. The two of them head inside.

Harold flushes almost instantly. "Oh, wait, Doctor—my house is a royal  _mess_ …"

Too late. The Doctor is already bounding around the house, staring at every corner of it, poking tapestries and tables. "You've got no childhood photos," he remarks.

"W-well…" Harold mumbles as he begins tidying up the sloppy living room, "I've… moved around a lot throughout my life. Been here, been there… there wasn't much room for me to bring around photographs. You know, I've got  _one_ … but it's recent, and my friend Lucy is in it."

" _Friend_?" the Doctor practically spits. He steps over and gazes at the framed photograph—an image of 'Harold Saxon' with his  _wife_ , Lucy. (His hearts wrench at the very sight of it.) Then, as he looks up from the picture, he spies a fob watch, sitting innocently on the shelf. The Doctor's eyes widen.  _So he did use a Chameleon Arch_ , he marvels to himself as he lifts it off of the shelf while Harold isn't looking, and runs his thumb over the surface, engraved with Gallifreyan writing. Silently, he places it in his pants pocket.  _…It's better if he doesn't know._

Harold walks over, carrying a bag full of his belongings. "I'm all packed up," he says cheerfully. "So where are we going?"

The Doctor glances up. "Er… well! I'm thinking I'll take this"—he holds up a piece of the worm's shriveled-up skin—"and run some tests on it in the TARDIS, try to find out its planet of origin and such."

Harold nods slowly. "So we're going into your spaceship thing?"

"It's not  _just_  a 'spaceship thing'," the Doctor reminds him, and then looks around the house again. "…But yeah, that's about it. Let's get going, before more of those start arriving."

"No arguments here," Harold responds, and the two of them head out of the house. He locks the front door behind him and makes sure his garage door is shut, and then follows the Doctor out towards a police phone box (which, for some reason, he had completely failed to notice before).

The Doctor grins and opens up the door. "After you, Mr Saxon," he says jokingly. Harold smiles curtly at him, and then steps inside, looking around with wide eyes.

"It's bigger on the inside," he manages to stutter. "Much bigger."

"Time Lord technology." The Doctor shuts the door behind him, and then rushes towards the control panel. "Now, let's just run this piece of skin through the scanner here…" He sticks the skin into a module, which begins scanning it. Information starts appearing on one of the panels. Harold stares in amazement as Gallifreyan scrawl forms on the screen.

"What is this language? It looks beautiful," he remarks.

The Doctor glances upwards as he continues gazing at the panel. "It's Gallifreyan. The language of the Time Lords. The TARDIS usually translates languages automatically, but since the TARDIS itself is Time Lord technology, it doesn't really translate Gallifreyan."

Harold nods. "Makes sense."

There's a long pause before the Doctor suddenly bursts out, "Ah-HAH! Got it!  _Perfect_!"

"What? What is it?" Harold looks over the Doctor's shoulder (a bit difficult to do, when considering his height).

"It's a Volsektoid larva," the Doctor explains quickly. "Don't know how I didn't recognize it at first, but somehow it just didn't occur to me." He runs his hand through his hair as he continues, "They hatch inside of circuits, and feed on electricity. Then they break out and start looking for the next power source. They're extremely vulnerable to light, however; it fries them. Like it did to this poor fellow."

"I wouldn't exactly call him a  _poor_  fellow, considering he was trying to, you know,  _kill us_ ," Harold says tentatively.

"Oh, but Harold, it's just a  _baby_! It didn't know better," the Doctor replies. "But that's besides the point. The point  _is_ , what are they doing here? Volsektoids normally stick to their own galaxies; I've never seen them travel as far as the Milky Way…"

"So you're saying they're aliens?" Harold stares at the control panel again. "…Does that mean these 'Time Lords' are aliens, too? Are you an alien?"

"Yes, I'm an alien," he responds nonchalantly as he begins keying in some commands onto the panel.  _And so are you_ , he thinks to himself,  _or, at least, you used to be._

"I always thought aliens were just made-up stories," Harold admits, and sits down on a random seat. He pauses, and adds, "You don't look alien. You look alright to me."

The Doctor glances up out of the corner of his eye. "I look 'alright' to you? What's that supposed to mean?"

Harold reddens. "I didn't mean it like that. I meant that you…"

"…look human," the Doctor finishes for him. Harold nods. "Well. I might  _look_  human to you, but I've got two hearts."

Harold's brows rise. "You're kidding."

"No, no, I'm serious. You can feel it." The Doctor steps over to him, and leans forward. Harold tentatively reaches out his hand and presses his palm against the Doctor's left breast, and feels the rhythm, a normal pulsation. Then he moves his hand to the right breast, and freezes. Another heart flutters beneath his fingertips, much to his surprise. He pulls back.

"Both of them work!" He exclaims.

The Doctor looks perturbed. "Of course they do. Why wouldn't they?" He opens up a cabinet and starts rifling through it. Harold watches with mild interest.

"What's it like, then, being in outer space? I mean—where are you from, Doctor? If you're an alien, then you're not from Earth, right? So then where do you come from? Where are Time Lords from?"

"Well," says the Doctor as he pulls a few strange contraptions out of the cabinet, "I'm from a planet called Gallifrey." He begins fooling around with a vacuum-like mechanism as he continues; "Beautiful fields full of lush, red grass. Trees with leaves like sterling silver…"

"It sounds beautiful," Harold murmurs softly. "Do you think you could take me to see it?"

The Doctor stops, his hands stopping their fiddling for once, and he looks straight at the floor. (If only, if only, he says to himself,  _if only_.) His pause makes Harold shift about uncomfortably before he finally answers: "No…. It's gone."

"…Gone?" Harold tilts his head a bit. "What happened to it?" Silence returns his inquiry before the Doctor finally springs back up to his feet, and slings the vacuum onto his shoulder.

Immediately pepped up, the Doctor says suddenly, "Alright, Harold. We're going to catch ourselves a giant worm."


	3. Alien

"How exactly are we going to catch one of those?" Harold inquires as the two of them step out of the TARDIS into the dark of night once again. His hands clench around the flashlight in his hand until his knuckles whiten.  _I'm not afraid,_  he tells himself.  _Not of some worm._

"Well!" The Doctor's eyes dart about, surveying the area. Only one lamppost still exudes light, though it flickers at an ecstatic pace. "They like the dark, don't they?" he says, and then grins. "You better keep that flashlight handy."

Harold swallows. "Now, what happens if I don't react fast enough? I'm not exactly..."

"Oh, don't worry about that," the Doctor responds instantly. "We'll be fine."

"Right."

The two proceed down the street, wondering if the turning-off of houselights is simply the routine act of human sleep or the vicious act of an alien worm. A couple times, Harold is tempted to flick on the flashlight, but the Doctor's presence reassures him, and the light stays off for now.

Suddenly, the Doctor grabs Harold's arm. "Quiet now," he whispers. "One of them is nearby."

Harold's jaw tightens as he swivels on his heel, trying to look around (which leads only to him seeing more darkness). "Where?" he mumbles, but his question is quickly answered when the bushes on someone's lawn begin to rustle.

They both tense. Harold's finger dangles over the on button.

Then it lunges from the brush. He stumbles back, arms reeling as his thumb slams down on the button. The ray of light first dances around the shadows before he steadies himself and shines it on the creature, which writhes and stiffens immediately, shrieking all the way. "Doctor!" he shouts, gazing at the stunned worm. Reacting within a fraction of time (as Time Lords always do), the Doctor pulls the switch and lifts up the nozzle of his vacuum. The suction begins to roar, and the whole of the worm is shot down the guzzler, straight into the tank. Gone.

Panting, Harold's vice-grip on the flashlight finally relaxes, and the Doctor grins, patting him on the back reassuringly. "That was good, Harold. Fantastic."

Harold glances at the Doctor, a sheepish smile forming. "Was it? I was worried I'd be too slow."

"Nah!" The Doctor steps back, shoving his hands into his pockets. He looks around, surveying the neighborhood with a lazy, yet critical eye.  _So this is where he would live, huh?_  He briskly dismisses the thought and adds, "Don't you ever doubt yourself, Harry—can I call you Harry?—because, believe me, you're stone-cold brilliant. You really are."  _And not even a Chameleon Arch can hide that fact from you._

Harry (as the Doctor will call him now) laughs timidly. "I don't know about that, Doctor. I'm just some... ordinary guy, working at the prosthetics'." He pauses, then sighs, placing his hand delicately upon the warm, smooth metal of the vacuum container in which the Volsektoid remains imprisoned: an alien from another world, right beneath his fingertips. "Never thought I'd be helping an alien... well... fight other aliens. Well, let alone  _meeting_  a real alien."

A sad smile consumes the Doctor's face. "Harold Saxon, you're more important than you could ever possibly imagine. So don't you ever belittle yourself, cause you're  _so much more_  than that."  _You could have been beautiful,_  he says to himself.  _You and I. We were going to travel the stars together._  "So much more."

After a moment's contemplation, Harry flicks the flashlight off. He wants to believe the Doctor—but haven't they only just met? Maybe for aliens, it's easier to get along with strangers (it's what he tries to tell himself). But for Harold Saxon, the familiarity with which they treat each other is  _alien_  to him. Not only the Doctor's peculiar closeness, but Harold's own; he doesn't understand why he's so drawn to this Doctor. And it scares him.

But Harry loves this all the same.

"Let's get back to the TARDIS," the Doctor says abruptly. "A live sample should be much more useful than a dead one."

They quickly proceed back to the TARDIS. While the Doctor begins working away that worm thing, Harold at last gets a chance to give the TARDIS a good poking-about. The TARDIS feels familiar and comfortable to him somehow, as if he had known it before... but he shakes the thought off.  _That would be impossible,_  he tells himself.  _I'm sure that if I had ever seen anything like this before, I'd remember it._

He runs his hand over the controls, getting a feel for the "Time Lord" technology.  _How strange_ , Harold thinks.  _It looks like the Doctor's not the only one who's used this. Who else has he known?_

"Doctor," he says, still staring at the vast array of buttons, "am I the first?"

The Doctor doesn't take his eyes off of the panel, continuing his work. In a sort of flat-toned answer, he replies, "No... there were... others."

"Who were they?" Harold asks.  _I'm not angry about it, if you're worried I will be_ , he wants to say aloud.  _I really don't expect you to treat me more special than others, no matter what you might tell me._

"Oh. Well," the Doctor tilts his head to the side. "There was... there was this girl. Well, actually, more than one girl... Oh, that sounded bad, I don't mean it that way..."

Harold smiles. "Were they aliens, too, Doctor? Or were they like me?"

A warm memory touches upon the Doctor's hearts, and he has to suppress his own smile.  _They weren't aliens, but they certainly weren't like you._  "Humans. Ordinary humans," he responds. "Well, I had others before then, but... that was a long time ago."  _That was before the Time War. Before I became the last of the Time Lords._  "The... the last one I knew. Donna. Donna Noble. She... she had to go."

"She had to go? What is that supposed to mean?" Harold isn't so dense that he fails to notice the tinge of grief in the Doctor's voice.  _Whatever happened... it wasn't pretty._

"Oh, it's complicated," the Doctor breathes. "But I can't ever see her again. Not now, and not ever." He frowns. "It's for her own good."

 _I wonder how short-lived their friendship was. Will mine be that short, too?_  And just as Harold's eyes dart upwards so that he can peer at the Doctor's face, an acute pain fills his head. Stumbling backwards, Harry's hand clutches at his scalp as a migraine in four pulses overtakes him, pounding his nerves, threatening to burst his skull open. He gasps. The pain has never been sharper.

The Doctor immediately looks up from the panel. "Harry?" Then he sees him, and his hearts frenzy. "Harry!" He dashes over, instantly upon him. "Harry, what is it? What's wrong?"

"Oh, Doctor... my  _head_..." Harold clenches his teeth. "It's... it's the  _noise_ , Doctor... the  _drumming_..." Black dots begin consuming his vision.  _No, no, no, no!_  The last thought he holds in his mind before he slips into unconsciousness is the repeated pounding of his own anguish.


End file.
